The earth doesn’t seem the same when you look at it from 30,000 feet above sea level. The mounting evidence of vivid swirls, plight and habitat of daily life are lost, but it is spectacular to see our existence on the ground. In good light I draw a similarity index between roads to employees.

Some roads are curved, some are uphill, some downhill, some broad, some narrow, some are accident prone, some have dead end, some lead to arrive to, some are at acute, obtuse, scalene, right angles and most go straight. The author is imperative in the depiction of re-imagined roads to employee’s perceptive eligibility, skills and delivery of duties at the organization.

Given an option an employable person would opt for an easy, choice job over one that is not his/her forte and not as interesting than the former (both at the same pay package). It proclaims the presence of a mix, creating new vistas – high performers, performers and non-performers at the time when there is a shortage of trained and skilled manpower in the Industry.

Talking about the hospitality for e.g., out of the “x” percentage of hospitality graduates being groomed for the demand envisaged becoming the endangered species weakening the key provisions of their prospective position if engaged. The reality guiding is that there are a meager share who end up taking up a career in hospitality after the ready-to-deliver spread over to retail, banks, airlines, cruise, railways, MNCs, ITES, Defense services, further education masters or abroad degrees. As a result, the hospitality professionals available for the operations today are escalating skilled manpower shortage as a major threat.

The technological advancement has been a boom, with cloud computing, apps driven reservation system, I-phone used as room key, express check-in, self check-in check-out, multi floors reception and reverse auction to name a few. Not affecting the procedures except for the personalized touch though, the personnel intervention is what keeps the technology updated and journeying to the guests’ hospitable world.

There has been an immiscible mix of performers. The poor performers have been flourishing out of the performing bunch despite the HR and departmental counseling and motivation. The only thing that matters is that the concerned should consider to work on it and graduate to the performing lot. We have a famous saying of being able to take the horse to the water but cannot force him to drink. These are the people who are dead performers, retaining in the organization for very many reasons, less productive but suffice the manpower tally. Can dead performer’s score be accounted for?

Much has already been written about the core group of young, well-educated professionals amidst the experienced veterans that forms the bulk of the service industry workforce. Variously referred to as “Generation Y”, “millenials” and the “iGen”, they have been described as trend conscious, idealistic, innovative and socially conscious. Technologically adept, skilled at communication and strongly motivated by interpersonal networks, they do tend to carry their own values and work priorities into the workplace and are much less likely to respond to traditional “command-and-control” management styles. They are highly sensitive to performance feedback and strongly motivated by reward systems, but have a reputation for quickly leaving employers as researched by Alan G. Downe, Jessica SY Ho & Siew Phaik Loke.

Dead performers can be those categories of performers who have shown their respective job duties and responsibilities an about turn. Lesser on the team belongingness or contribution, less communication and less inter personal and inter organizational activities, indisciplinary and trouble creators coupled with untimely leaves and absenteeism which in turn can drastically affect the work environment and eventually the mindset of the coworkers.

With eligible skills and not sync delivery; performance and no productivity, is making a threat of new recession. Can we afford to leave this section of human capital unattended? The answer is definitely not. They have to be drawn into the main stream by treating them as spoiled children back home. There is no question of parents discarding their non-performing children instead nurture them. And the case of these dead performers is no different on the part of the organizations.

There can be various management gurus and HR critics, analysts and professionals who can join the debate of whether or not to even give a chance because we are churning out hospitality graduates but at what stature. The few routes out as fresh suggestions:

Their attributes and their best foot forward can be analyzed and re-assigned.

One-to-one sessions have proved fruitful in causes of concern in mentoring, training and re-training needs.

Their views and performance can be heard and if suitable translated to valued decisions.

They should be appreciated and suitably rewarded as per the policy of the organization.

They can be treated as team members and their responsibilities re-instated.

Not all are to be worked on this hard. Some are malleable merely addressing the issue can do wonders.

They could be engaged in job rotation to avoid monotony from the allotted job being performed, all this to ensure they do whatever best they can deliver.

Zen a scope of improvement at every stage possible to ensure growth and development at individual and organizational end.

Communication and feedback in order to ensure all concerned are in the loop.

The last thing would be attrition, should be backed by an exit interview

No formula is universal when working on the biggest asset – human, all that is possible and effective is a success story and we create one every day.

This author tries to explore the current demographic trends for the young service professional within the services environment and their motivations within the services industry. It also looks at what further steps employers can take to increase retention and engagement levels within this increasingly vital component of the hospitality workforce.